Late last year, president Obama signed a law that makes it possible to indefinitely detain terrorist suspects without any form of trial or due process. Peaceful protesters in Occupy movements all over the world have been labelled as terrorists by the authorities. Initiatives like SOPA promote diligent monitoring of communication channels. Thirty years ago, when Richard Stallman launched the GNU project, and during the three decades that followed, his sometimes extreme views and peculiar antics were ridiculed and disregarded as paranoia - but here we are, 2012, and his once paranoid what-ifs have become reality.

I'm surprised to see this sort of opinion coming from an european(even more so from a Dutch).

Yes, SOPA and NDAA are very bad, but there is nothing surprising about them, freedom in the US has been on a downwards spiral for a very long time. The Netherlands(and most of western Europe) have long been far more liberal than the US.

I agree that some of the bad trends(software patents, 3 strikes programs, etc.) in the US are being adopted elsewhere but to go from that to saying that RMS was right and the whole world is going bad is an exaggeration. What we need to do is stop pretending the US doesn't make part of the roll of repressive regimes. This isn't a new issue either, since 9/11 and the Patriot Act it has been ridiculous to call the US a free country.

I also agree that open source software is a good way to fight repressive governments, and I do promote open source/free software(and make my living from it), but I think we're very far from needing the all out war RMS seems to want to wage.

I don't think the sort of extremism RMS preaches is necessary to avoid 1984 all over the world, or even the best way forward.